Reality Check
by Darwin
Summary: Michael reacts to the events that have led him to seek out Selene. My vision of what Michael's reactions SHOULD have been and weren't in the movie...AU if you want to go that far...One shot


**_A/N: One of the things that really bugged me about Underworld was the fact that Michael, for whatever reason, really didn't react to the fact that he was about to become a werewolf, nor that Selene was a vampire, and nary the two shall have peace right? Putting myself in his shoes I would be a lot more caustic about the chain of events that led to his hybridization. I would have been wigging out…literally_**

_**So this is my thoughts on how the scene after Michael returns to the mansion SHOULD have gone. If you don't agree, okay no big…but give it a read before you say I am defaming the movie, eh?**_

_**Don't go high and right on me if this diverges from what you remember of the movie…I actually went back and researched the scenes that I have rewritten here. If it goes off on a tangent from the movie then it is one of the parts I felt needed to be more emotional regarding the goings on…right? Right.**_

_**Oh and the other thing I change up a bit was the "romance" in the scene at the safe house. Their mutual tragedies aside, it seemed out of place for her to be falling for him already. Again this is my opinion…so don't get offended…**_

_**Happy reading and let me know what you think…**_

_**Darwin

* * *

**_

**Reality Check**

Michael stood outside the gates of the mansion soaked to the skin, disoriented, and scared. His life hadn't been the same since Selene had come into it, toting gunfire in her wake.

The shootout in the subway was an ugly memory. The aftermath had been less than pleasant. The event; the guilt over the woman who had been injured was bad enough. He hoped to forget about those moments of terror as bullets whizzed by him, and many events in the past several nights had done their utmost to take its place.

Selene had found him again after that brush in the tunnels, pinning him to the wall of his own apartment with legs dangling inches from the floor, and demanding information that he didn't have a clue about.

He remembered thinking, _why is WHO after me?_

He hadn't had the time when it happened, to consider what it took for a woman of Selene's stature to lift him completely off the ground. Whoever or whatever she began shooting at, deserved a medal for distracting her from him long enough so that he could escape.

Her banging on the closed elevator doors and the subsequent shooting had resounded inside the small metal box as it ground its way to the first floor. The experience had been a frightening one - one that he was glad was over.

Or so he had thought.

Michael suppressed a shiver, unsure whether it was the chill of the rain or the images of the next events that night.

Sure that he had gotten away, he was surprised when there was a man standing just outside the elevator waiting for him.The man was, to put it kindly, scruffy. Long scraggly hair and a look that was trying to say…shit, he didn't know what it was trying to say. Again there was little time to think on it.

His large marble eyes regarded Michael and the smile that split his thin face made him think of a predator baring its teeth.

"Hello, Michael."

Michael's eyes widened, how was it so many people seemed to know who he was? Further inquiry, greetings, or attempts at escape were interrupted as something crashed at the far end of the hall, shaking the entire building. The cacophony did nothing to draw that man's attention away from him.

The man lurched before Michael heard the gunfire, three blood spatters flew from the man's flesh as the human blockade was hit in the neck, head, and chest. Michael ducked back, not wanting to become a part of the carnage mounting around him. The other man flung himself into the car with Michael, claw-like nails tearing aside his shirt.

Michael could only scream as the man bit him. He'd been bit before, as an intern going a week without getting scarred by someone was an oddity, however this was not the blunt pinching sensation of human teeth coming together on his skin. He felt as if 26 short piercing daggers had been shoved into the meat just above his shoulder.

Then he was being dragged away.

Selene had shown amazing control and determination during the escape, even after being stabbed deep by a blade through the roof as the car sped away from his apartment complex. He could tell that she was going into shock, and was surprised when he realized he hadn't. Well perhaps he was in shock, because he was taking it all a little too well.

Her pride had plunged them into the river, nearly killing them both. When Michael had awakened again - that is, after saving the woman and binding her wound and then falling into a concussive sleep - he found himself here at this mansion. He vaguely remembered speaking with Selene long enough to get to know her name, before he faded again.

Upon his return to consciousness, he found a blonde standing over him, looking at the wound. When she noticed that he was awake, she had wigged, hissing and baring a mouthful of snakelike fangs. He wanted to say he was hallucinating when the woman performed a trick he had only seen previously on Mel Blanc cartoons. She was on the floor one moment and hanging from the ceiling by all fours the next.

Michael considered that he had bumped his head harder than he thought.

It was enough to frighten him, though he hadn't relished the idea of jumping out a third story window. Once free he had disappeared into the night, only to discover that even people he thought of as friends were doing nothing to try and help him.

He was still uncertain why he was back here, concussion or not, what he had seen had him questioning his sanity. The visions he kept seeing - beasts and sunlight, torture and death - were something he wanted to stop. He felt as if he had contracted a really nasty case of the flu, as well.

Selene was the only one he felt might have the answers to his questions.

Michael focused as he heard a car start, and gravel being thrown by too quick an acceleration. He stepped back as the gates swung inward and a silver sports car slid to a halt next to him.

Swallowing against sudden indecisiveness, Michael reached out for the handle and opened the door.

"Get in," Selene looked upset, but she had looked upset before.

He did as he was told, not wanting to stay outside the tall white pillars framing the entrance to that strange mansion.

They hadn't moved a mile down the road when Selene pulled the neck of his shirt away from the bite. She looked at it for long moments, grimaced, and then flung the soaked garment back into place as if she had been burned.

It was a long time before she spoke again.

"What is going on? What is happening to me?"

He didn't like what she had to say when she spoke, "Like it or not, you are in the middle of a war that has been raging for the better part of a thousand years - a blood feud - between Vampires and Lycans."

He was already stunned by the first term he did recognize, even before she explained the second.

She saw the shock and confusion on his face, "Werewolves."

His thoughts reeled back remembering the things that he had been witness to over the past several nights. His disbelief was greater than the proof of his eyes, and he was more than willing to attribute the hallucinations on the concussion from the crash and his own blood loss.

"What the hell are you on?" Michael spouted, "Vampires? Werewolves?"

"Do you really believe a human marked you in such a manner?"

"I don't believe in movie monsters," he evaded the question. He knew the moment he had been bitten that it was wrong somehow.

"They were after you for a reason," She continued. "Lycans do not normally leave victims alive."

She peeled around a corner, perfectly inserting the vehicle into the cross street regardless of the sheet of water on its surface.

"You should consider yourself lucky."

"Lucky? I'm in a car talking to a woman who believes she is a vampire, and talks about a millennia old war between them and…God damn it! Stop the car and let me out."

"No."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Perhaps you should have weighed your options better before returning to the mansion - and asking for my help."

Michael couldn't counter her admonishment and fell silent.

"I meant you are lucky in that, most people who are bit by Lycans die within hours. The virus we transmit is deadly."

"What are you talking about?"

His disbelief must have reflected in his voice, because she sighed wearily, "You sought me out for answers. I am trying to give them to you - if you will only listen to me."

The woman was a loon, playing along he said, "So, what - if you were to bite me - I would become a vampire instead?"

"No," she said in all seriousness, "You'd die. No one has ever survived a bite from both species."

A niggling thought teased the back of his mind, perhaps she wasn't crazy, and he wasn't delusional. What if the things that he had seen, the attack perpetrated on him, and the events he had suffered through, had all been real? What if they had been the work of one of these creatures Selene was speaking of? He shook his head; still trying to deny what his imagination was telling him was so plausible.

"By rights, I should stop the car right now and kill you."

"Why not?" Michael's disbelief and temper flared, "Sure, I've been bit by a werewolf and you're my mortal enemy."

"I have spent my entire life killing your kind." Again the calm and totally believable manner of her statement spooked him.

"They're not my kind!"

"They are whether you choose to believe it or not."

"Then why did you help me?" His bellow filled the small cab of the car, echoing back his incredulity.

"I'm not!" she insisted, "My only concern is why Lucian is so interested in you."

Who Lucian was Michael didn't ask, for he truly didn't want to know.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later they were at some safehouse in the middle of town.

"Have you…Moved on?" Selene asked him.

They had been comparing tragedies, Michael having finished reluctantly speaking of his own recent loss.

Michael managed to catch her off guard when he answered with his own question, "Have you?"

She had refused to answer his questions after that, instead making excuses to leave him.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to go back."

"You're leaving me here?"

"It is too dangerous for you to return with me. They will kill you on sight."

"Why…because I'm a Lycan?" Again his disbelief bled through, "I don't believe that bullshit."

"You'd better if you want to stay alive." She answered, "If Lucian is after you as well…there is no place more safe than right here."

"I need to go home."

She actually laughed, "What's left of it? They will be expecting that."

"You can't keep me here!"

"Watch me," she answered. Taking two strides, she pushed Michael into the chair he had just risen from, clasping one of his arms in an iron grip. He tried to struggle, but it was as if a python had gotten a hold of his wrist. Before he could voice his indignation, there was a manacle latched to his hand.

"What are you doing?" He managed, yanking on the chain and wincing when it came to the end of its length.

"When the full moon rises tomorrow night, you will change, you will kill, and you will feed. It is unavoidable; I can't leave you free to roam around. I'm sorry."

She walked once more toward the door, paused and looked down at the weapon in her hand. She returned to him with it, showing him the clip, "One bullet won't kill you, but the silver will be enough to stop the transformation – if only for a few hours. If I don't return in time, do yourself a favor, use it."

She left with those words, leaving him to his own devices in a strange room - with only a gun.

Some hours later Michael tried yet again to loosen the chain that held him to the uncomfortable chair.

"Damn it," he muttered, plopping down into the seat and weighing the conversation between him and Selene.

He still wanted to deny what Selene had told him. But the facts she had put out, the details she remembered were hard to refute. More and more he was beginning to accept that she was what she claimed.

What did that mean for him?

He raised a hand to his shoulder gingerly feeling the scars beneath his blood and water soaked shirt. He ran the scenario through in his head, every bit of lore he had ever seen brought to life on a movie screen, giving him best and worse case scenarios. From "The Wolf Man" to "An American Werewolf in London" to "The Howling," there was a large bit of territory there as far as the comfort level and the kinds of changes that would take place.

He stopped a moment, blinked, and then shook his head, "An American Werewolf in London. Jesus Christ."

Michael turned his thoughts from that again, wanting, no needing, to escape this place.

He jangled the chain again.

_If I'm supposed to be a werewolf, _he pulled the restraint taut, every tendon in his neck standing out, _why…can't…I…even…break…one…chain?_

"Cha…" escaped him as he gave up trying to pull it free of its anchor.

He even resorted to using the gun Selene had given him on the chain, only to have it jump out of his hand and skitter across the tiled floor.

"Son of a bitch…"

His only choice was to sit and wait until the crazy woman returned to free him of this prison.

"I pray to God she _is _crazy," he uttered as he settled into a more comfortable position.


End file.
